f.lux App Review: Why this is a must have app!

There’s one app that is the first I install on any computer I use, and every person I’ve recommended to has raved about it.

The power of F.lux at night

That app is f.lux: a simple yet extremely powerful, free app that will transform your life.

F.lux is a very simple app that will make you sleep way better and have more energy during the day. It's based on scientific research on the effects of blue light from computers on sleep. It works by changing the color temperature of your monitor at night.

Here's the science behind it

The experimental research suggests that an average person reading on a tablet for a couple hours before bed may find that their sleep is delayed by about an hour. Clearly, the details are complicated, but that's why we get to cite so many very interesting papers.

Happy, relaxed eyes

Our eyes didn’t evolve to handle a large contrast in brightness for long periods of times - experienced when you stare at your monitor in a dark room for hours.

So f.lux makes it a lot easier on your eyes since the colors aren’t as bright at night. This makes your eyes and head feel good and avoid eyestrain and headaches associated with long periods of computer use.

Internal Alarm Clocks

Have you ever had the experience of setting an early alarm clock for an important meeting and waking up the next day right before it went off?

What the heck… how is your body able to do such a miraculous thing?

It’s due to your body having an internal biological clock that keeps track of time for you. That’s why you feel sleepy, or hungry or wake up at similar times every day.

To understand why your biological clock is important, think of a large complicated organization like FedEx. So many departments and actions have to stay in sync with each other, otherwise packages would never get shipped properly.

Your body is vastly more complex than FedEx, and vastly more efficient. Therefore, it requires an even greater amount of being ‘in sync’. This is why your body gets wrecked when your biological clock gets out of sync.

Did cavemen have rolexes?

This is where f.lux comes in. Turns out your brain uses the intensity of light (color temperature) to determine what time of day it is. The more ‘blue’ light there is, or higher color temperature, the closer it is to Noon.

The less blue light there is, the more orange things appear. Your body reads this reduction in light temperature as nightfall.

Generally, your brain expects to be exposed to the natural sun cycle. So any type of artificial light in the evening will shift your biological clock to some extent.

Fixing your internal clock

The biggest culprit in the disruption of your biological clock is Blue Light. That’s the light used in LCD displays (what you are reading this on) and Fluorescent bulbs.

Blue light exposure basically signals to the body that there is a lot of sun light and it’s close to noon time. If it is indeed noon-time, this is a very healthy and necessary thing. At night, on the other hand, blue light suppresses natural melatonin production and causes insomnia and sleep problems.

This is why blue light is used as a treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder, which is caused by low levels of sun.

What are the benefits of f.lux

Now that you understand the science behind the app, learn about the benefits of installing f.lux and reducing blue light exposure.